Mass Effect: Winston's Revenge
by NoirValor
Summary: One Shot follow up to Office Work. Shepard, Garrus and their Geth ally, Atlas, Break into a Neo-Cerberus Group lab in order to acquire an AI Chip in order to repair EDI. The only problem, mercenaries.


**A/N: And I'm back. Thanks all who have been reading while I have been dealing with career and life advancement. I have more of an update at the end of the story. As always, please enjoy.**

Mass Effect: Winston's Revenge

Shepard and Garrus crouched behind a barrier, loading thermal clips into their weapons. The metallic clicks reassuring their operators that they were ready. The human and the turian looked at each other and nodded, indicating they were prepared to proceed with the mission.

The two along with the rest of The Normandy arrived the previous day at the Space Station DS9. DS9 was an extremely large space station. While not as large as The Citadel or Omega, it was large enough to allow several cruisers to dock. In total, DS9 was about two-thirds of the size of one of the wards on The Citadel, and had the resources to support it. Fueling and repairing passing ships along with a fully developed economy from corporate development kept DS9 running.

The reason why they were on DS9 at all was because intelligence from their previous mission led them here. The Order of Linron has another lab on the space station. This one on paper was a research and development lab for computer parts, but data from their previous operation at Mallis Labs indicated that it was also did illegal AI work, programming and building them. So Shepard and Garrus were tasked with entering the labs and securing any assets, and destroying anything that could not be used by the Spectres.

The intel also revealed information that made the whole of The Normandy excited. The lab, registered as Limitless Innovation LLC., had developed a brand new AI chip. The last component needed to rebuild EDI, The Normandy AI, was an AI chip.

Alliance Finance Division wouldn't grant the resources to replace EDI's overloaded AI chip. This left The Normandy without an AI for the post several months, much to the crew's remorse. The one silver lining was that Atlas, the AI Geth Juggernaut attached to The Normandy, was able to repair all of the other parts needed to make EDI operational.

Back on the ground, the two Spectres did one final check of their equipment and their environment. The building that Limitless Innovation was based out of was built in such a manner where sneaking in was not an option. They would have had to use explosives which could have damaged the sensitive electronics inside the lab, or worse, a critical system for meant the assault team needed to make a frontal attack, which would be difficult because The Blood Pack were contracted for security.

"You ready?" Shepard asked.

"Ready." Garrus said.

Shepard opened up a radio channel. "Steve, are you ready?"

"Yeah Commander, but I'm not the one you need to ask." the shuttle pilot said.

"Atlas, you sure this will work?"

"Yes Commander." Atlas electronic voice said. "Airdropping combat units is a common Geth tactic. Reinforced units such as myself are rated for far greater altitudes."

Shepard remembered the first time a Geth Colossus fell to the ground from a Geth frigate in the same way a Mako or Hammerhead tank. "Okay then."

The plan to get through the front door was to use Shock and Awe tactics by dropping Atlas into a good position off to the side where he could provide suppressive fire. Shepard and Garrus would then attack from their current position.

"On your mark." The Commander said.

A few moments later a blue Alliance shuttle passed through the air in form of the lab. Canted at an angle and the side door open, Atlas fell out the side. At over seven feet tall, he was too large to walk upright into the shuttle, so was loaded in his collapsed form onto the shuttle. The mass of metal fell a quick second to the ground and impacted with a loud crash. This drew the attention of all the Krogan and Vorcha guards that made up the Blood Pack.

The excitement started as Atlas pulled out a six barreled Geth Spitfire. The mini-gun spun up and released a storm of high velocity metal. Of the three Krogan and four Vorcha, Atlas cut down all of the Krogan and two of the Vorcha. The last two survived the initial assault by diving to the ground in a panic. Their near miss was short lived as Shepard and Garus stepped out of their hiding spot and pushed forward, shooting the Vorcha in the head with their rifles. The trio then regrouped and moved toward the front entrance.

"So how does airdropping a Geth Juggernaut compare to airdropping Wrex?" Garrus asked Shepard.

"Well I've seen Wrex take out a shuttle, and he does have biotics. One the other hand, Atlas carries a bigger gun." Shepard analyzed.

"Probably don't want to tell Wrex that. But he is also more stylish, you just know that old quad would have some clever one liner to say right now." Garrus pointed out.

"Yeah." Shepard said. "But a bigger gun counts more right now seeing as we are dealing with the Blood Pack."

"So I take it Wrex will never hear a word of this?"

"Not one whispered syllable."

Atlas had been observing the exchange. "I appreciate that my efficiency has been noted and ranked appropriately."

"All right, let's continue mission." Shepard ordered.

The three entered through the double doors to Limitless Innovation. The human and the turian filed behind the Geth. This was because the Blood Pack loved heavy weapons, and Atlas's stronger shields and armor were more likely to survive the heavy weapons they were likely to encounter. Luckily, the atrium was devoid of anybody who wanted to kill the trio.

"Atlas, where do we need to go?" Shepard asked.

"We can reach the Research and Development lab by proceeding down two floors in the freight elevator. From there we will have to search that floor until we identify and acquire the Artificial Intelligence Computer Processing Unit.

"Ah, elevators." Garrus said with a fond smile, and a dry voice.

"Thousands of years of innovation in travel to reach the farthest reaches a space, and no species and invent a way to move up and down a building faster." Shepard said with mirth.

There was a large freight elevator in the corner of the atrium. The three team members quickly piled in and swapped out weapons that were better suited for the close quarters of the R&D lab. Garrus kept his Phaeson Rifle out while Shepard pulled out an Enforcer Shotgun and Atlas pulled out a Geth Plasma Shotgun.

"Spirits, how much more damage can you do?" Garrus asked Atlas. "I mean, I brought you onto the Normandy to fix EDI, I didn't know you carried this much artillery.

"My combat software includes High Kinetic Energy Rounds, an Electrical Systems Overload, and an Autonomous High Explosive Combat Drone." Atlas explained. "All standard with units such as myself."

Shepard and Garrus just stared at the Geth Juggernaut.

"Remember that we are surrounded by expensive equipment." Shepard said with worried caution.

"All owned by a front company to the Order of Linron." Garrus interjected with cheeky humor.

"Fair point. Feel free to cause as much or 'unavoidable collateral property damage' as you need to."

"Lowering threshold for acceptable environmental damage by 86%." The Geth responded.

Shepard grinned at Atlas and nodded his head. The elevator stopped moving and the doors opened to the first room in the R&D lab. The assault team stormed into the room…into the waiting sightlines of several Salarians wearing green pattern armor. The Salarians opened fire with several Mattock rifles from behind a variety of desks and counters. The ambush was well planned, but the two Spectres planned for a much harder foe to resist them. The mixed race team quickly push through an ended their resistance with a series of thunderous shotgun blasts mixed with the sound of staccato rifle cracks.

The three members of the assaulting unit took a quick look over the green armored Salarians. Their species eliminated them as members of the Krogan and Vorcha Blood Pack. Their training was organized, but not equipped to deal with attacking Spectres. Their weapons were common around the entire galaxy. The only hint to their identity was the pattern of the armor.

"Who do you think that these guys are?" Shepard asked pointing to a symbol on the shoulders on one of the dead Salarians. Against the white background of the shoulder pad, a green horizontal oval occupied the top half of an open circle, and a chevron occupied the bottom part.

"This symbol resembles the central focal point of the Linron family crest." Atlas said in his robotic tone.

"Great." Garrus said with malice and sarcasm. "Not they have a paramilitary unit."

"The Order of Linron was classified as a Neo-Cerberus group for a reason." Shepard said. "Their security setup makes sense, use merc groups like CAT6 and the Blood Pack up front to scare away most armed robbers and corporate thief types, but use your own private force to protect the fragile and valuable assets inside that mercenaries might steal.

Garrus grunted as he walked over to a larger computer and began to hack into the system. "Retrieving as much as I can."

"We'll go find the AI chip." Shepard said as he and Atlas walked over to a door leading out of the current room. The human and the Geth walked into a new area with several computer parts spread over numerous tables.

"Which piece is the AI chip?" Shepard asked Atlas.

"Unknown." Atlas stated, and then began to explain. "The nature of an Artificial Intelligence Central Processing Unit will make it exponentially larger than the average central processing unit. It will be somewhere in the range of 9-10 kilograms and.."

"There it is." Shepard interrupted as he pointed out a large blue and white cube on top of a corner desk. Everything else in the room was flat and small and not nearly big enough to weigh as much as Atlas had described. "Well that was easy." Shepard remarked.

The fragile nature of AI chips made it so that they needed to be transported in special packs that protected them from moisture, static, and other environmental considerations that were bad for computers. Shepard found one of these packs under the bench that the AI Chip sat on. After loading the Chip into the pack, and onto his back, Shepard prepared a demolition charge that he had brought with him.

The two then walked back into the previous room where Garrus was finished hacking into the computer and setting up his own demolition charge as well. "Looks like you found it." Garrus said.

"Yes we did, now let's get out of here." The Commander ordered.

The team stepped back onto the elevator and Garrus hot the button for roof access. Shepard meanwhile radioed Steve Cortez to pick them up. Atlas stood mute, waiting for some kind of input. The elevator pinged, and then there was a call from Cortez.

"Commander, get down!" Steve yelled over the radio.

Shepard and Garrus dived to the ground as a missile said through the air and slammed into Atlas. A violent explosion destroyed everyone's shields, but no one was injured. While the two Spectres waited for their shields to power up, Atlas pulled out the Spitfire and spawned a combat drone. The Geth Juggernaut fired upon the location of the missile's origin. Three more Salarians in green armor scattered from cover as heavy fire and a combat drone descended upon their location. One of the Salarians fired a Scimitar Shotgun at the combat drone, causing it to explode and kill the aliens attacking Shepard and his team.

Shepard poked his head out, and from under his Recon Hood, raised his eyebrows. "All right then." he said. "Cortez, the roof top is clear."

"I saw that. Was that you Commander?" Cortez asked bewildered.

"Negative, that was Atlas." Shepard responded.

"Might want to pick it up Commander, or you and Garrus will be the number two guys for the cause the bad guys property damage." Steve said as he pulled into land.

An explosion echoed from several floors below as the demolition charges went off. "No. Garrus and I are still number one." Shepard said as they stepped onto the shuttle to fly away.

* * *

Shepard, Atlas, and Joker stood in the AI Core of The Normandy. The two humans waited breathlessly as the Geth worked, putting together the last few panels on EDI's Quantum Blue Box computer. Atlas had spent the past hour properly socketing the new AI Chip, and running diagnostics to make sure that EDI could handle it.

The Commander looked over at Joker who was waiting anxiously. Joker loved The Normandy as its pilot. EDI was, for all intents and purposes, a part of The Normandy.

"You sure you're not going to break something jumping for joy when this works?" Shepard asked, referencing the pilots disease that caused brittle bones.

"Oh I probably will, but the sick bay is right on the other side of the door, so I should be fine." Joker said.

Atlas finally stepped back and looked to the humans. "The Enhanced Defense Intelligence is assembled." The Geth Juggernaut said.

"Well fire er' up." Shepard ordered.

"Affirmative."

Looking over the side of Atlas, Shepard watched him make a series of keystrokes on a nearby keyboard, and watched a progress bar slowly fill at an agonizing rate. When the bar reached 100%, a soft blue glow began to emanate from EDI's mainframe.

"So…what now?" Shepard asked.

"Yeah, what now?" Joker repeated.

"It will take some time for EDI to reload her memory and data banks, as well as process the six months of systems logs from The Normandy." Atlas explained. "Upon the completion of these tasks, EDI should reboot."

The trio waited a few more tense minutes. Eventually a nearby holographic display ignited to life. A form resembling a blue chess pawn stood there waiting for some kind of action.

"EDI…?" Shepard asked uncertain.

"Good day Shepard. How are you?" EDI asked plainly.

"Fine. What's your last series of reading?" Shepard asked carefully.

"I recorded a large energy source originating from The Crucible over Earth. After that, my system went down. Is it safe to assume we won?"

"Yeah EDI. We won."

"Good". EDI said. "It would have been very distressing if the first news that you gave me was that we have new evil Reaper overlords." she finished with humor.

Shepard looked over and saw joker smiling. The Commander opened up the ship wide intercom. "Good news everybody. EDI's back." The sound of cheering could be heard throughout the ship. A nearby 'CRACK' punctured it though.

"Aww, Ow." Joker groaned as he held his shin. "I think I broke my leg."

Shepard shook his head. "Chakwas." He called out to the ships medical officer.

"It's good to be back." EDI said.

 **A/N: So did you all enjoy it? For those who don't know. Winston was the name of the super computer that played on the game show Jeopardy. Hopefully I will be able to get back into the swing of writing and bring you all more action and adventure and possibly fluff if I ever get the hang of writing that. Anyway, I updated my profile that should give more of an idea of what I plan on doing, and hopefully it peaks your interest. Thanks for waiting all.**

 **NoirValor, July 2015**


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